Family, Domestic Economy, and Women’s and Men’s Lives

Abstract

One of the contemporary aspects of immigrant life about which we may confidently say there are some profound differences from the past is that encompassed by women’s lives, especially in regard to work and family. But the changes we observe in women’s lives are much larger than the world of immigrants. They are general changes that pervade American society, which has witnessed in the last three decades a remarkable expansion in the public roles of women. In the article that you are about to read, anthropologist Nancy Foner points out the great differences in the lives of European immigrants of the turn-of-the-century era and contemporary immigrant women in New York City, continuously one of the most significant immigrant receiving centers throughout American history. In the past, when it was believed a woman’s place was in the home caring for a husband and children and keeping house, immigrant women stayed at home and their daughters left school to work and earn money to help maintain their parents’ household. If immigrant mothers and wives needed to earn money to supplement the income of their husbands and resident children, they did so working at home. They took in boarders, who paid for their meals and living space, and they did various types of industrial home work, especially sewing, for which they were paid. Today, mothers and wives work outside the home, and daughters go to school, and it is expected that men will share in the responsibility for housework and childcare.